What do you think when you think about politics?

In partnership with The Civic Commons, West Life will be gathering a different group of people from the Westshore community each week and ask them a question related to the 2012 political season. This week, we asked a group of Westlake High School seniors “What do you wish the candidates were actually talking about?” Here’s what they had to say:

Westlake High School students (L-R) Sean Bigley, Mark Sutcliffe, Radu Simion, Maddie Sahdhu and Liz Kobe. West Life photo by Nicole Hennessy

Radu Simion: “I looked up Romney’s website, and there’s a whole list of issues, and I feel like they are covering everything, maybe just put emphasis on certain things other than others, (like) more emphasis on the economy from the workers’ standpoint. They keep saying ‘jobs, jobs, jobs,’ but in the kind of information society we have today, it’s kind of hard to create jobs when we keep losing them to machinery.”

Sean Bigley: “We kind of need to stop looking to put the blame on everyone else and start looking to figure out what we can do to fix the economy, maybe together … I would have to do more research about Romney’s plan to fix the economy — his plan along with Paul Ryan’s. Paul Ryan, he’s along with my views as a Catholic Republican, I just haven’t read enough about (the Romney-Ryan economic plan) or I haven’t been subjected to that kind of information yet. It hasn’t been told to me.”

Liz Kobe: “With regards to the election, I just wish that they would focus on their actual beliefs rather than focus on the other person’s beliefs and then attacking them. And, although I do find the social issues important, I think, with regards to bettering the economy, they need to stray away from that a little bit more. I think a very important thing is that they need to withdraw all the troops from the Middle East, and I hope whoever does get elected, that they don’t get involved with Syria and Iran.”

Mark Sutcliffe: “One question I have is what’s gonna happen to us after college? I know Obama’s saying ‘we created all these different jobs,’ yet there’s so many people who are still unemployed.”